Monday Motivational

Just because we all need a little push every so often.

Motivation Monday

The one trait every successful writer must have.

If you're a working writer, by which I mean a writer who creates and submits their finished work on a regular basis, then you're familiar with rejections from publishers and or editors. Even if we self publish, no sales is the same as a rejection, only now it's readers rejecting our work.

Rejection from readers or publishers could be viewed as the wind that separates the wheat from the chaff. For the working writer rejection is just another part of living the writer's life.

We've read about the rejections famous writers endured when they were first starting out.

Frank Herbert's Dune was rejected 22 times.

James Patterson's first book was rejected 31 times.

After years of rejection The Chronicles of Narnia are finally published.

What we don't read about are the writers who gave up after being rejected. Those nameless people who finally surrendered and focused their energies on pursuits other than writing.

What is the one trait Frank Herbert, James Patterson, C.S. Lewis and a host of other best selling authors all possess?

Persistence!

It was persistence that drove Frank Herbert to submit Dune the 23rd time. Had he given up after 22 rejections, or even 10 for that matter, the world would never have known about sand worms, spice, and the house Atreides.

It was persistence that drove Stephen King to write another book after Random House rejected The Long Walk. And look where that got him.


It was persistence that pushed Louis L'Amour (one of my favorite writers) to keep trying even after he was rejected 200 times. Finally Bantam decided to take a chance on him.

It is this same persistence that daily pushes thousands of other writers we've never heard of to send it out one more time, to write that other book, or to keep putting them out there. It is this same persistence that will be looked upon as a necessary trait when they do find their success and look back at their careers. They will see those defining moments when it could have gone differently had they not been persistent.

Are you persistent?

The one trait every writer must Possess.

I'm sure every writer who has ever put pen to paper has experienced the following situation.

You've researched your target market thoroughly, reading past issues to see what types of work they have been publishing, scouring writers forums for feedback from writers rejected by your target market. You don't want to make any of the mistakes they have.

You develop your idea, a nugget that recently presented itself to you from that unknowable region within the writers mind where all ideas are born. You've slaved over the story, slanting it to fit within your target market. Writing and rewriting, editing and re-editing, polishing until the words flow with an eloquence that startles even you.

Your cover letter is a masterpiece of brevity, direct and to the point, wasting nary a syllable, nor a moment of your target editor's time. You're confident the piece will be accepted, after all you've covered all the bases so you turn your attention to other tasks, focus on other works while in the back of your mind you're patiently waiting for that acceptance email.

Time passes, anywhere from three weeks to a year has gone by since you submitted your work to that target market. The email has arrived, you recognize the subject as the one you wrote for the original submission and you hesitate for a moment before opening the email. For a brief second you think to yourself that it has to be a rejection, after all that's been the story of your life lately.

You open the email, secretly hoping it's time for a celebration while at the same time dreading the discovery of the words that will mar the start of a new day.

"Thank you for your story submission. Unfortunately we will not be able to use it. Good luck in the future."

What?

The stages of grief ensue.

SHOCK, "you gotta be kidding me, after all the work I put into this submission."

DENIAL, "it has to be a mistake, they just got my acceptance email mixed up with another writer's  rejection."


"This can't be right!"

ANGER "who do these people think they are? I'll show them."

Anger fuels desperation as you hit the lowest point of loneliness and isolation.

Most of us emerge from the other side with a renewed desire to push ourselves even harder if for no other reason than to show the editor who rejected us that it was they who made a mistake. We accept their decision and move on, forging ahead with an understanding that this is what the writing life is all about.

Those who do not, become trapped in that downward bubble of loneliness and isolation, eventually giving up on a dream that was really nothing more than a passing fancy.

How close had they come when they gave up?

That which drives us onward is a simple trait we know as persistence. An intangible thing that compels us to keep pushing on even in the face of seemingly impossible odds. It is persistence that pushes the writer through those upside down bubbles, the deep valleys that are as much a part of the writing life as the high peaks. The desire to succeed, coupled with a strong sense of persistence, is the driving force that pushes the writer to keep submitting, to keep putting it out there, no matter the reaction.

It is not a trait that can be taught to anyone. One does not learn how to be persistent in the classroom, though some advanced subjects in college require their students to arrive with a high degree of persistence. We learn how to be persistent through out our lives. If we want something important to us, and it is out of reach, we persist in attaining that goal. Be it a new job, good grades in school, or even that shiny new car you've been eying up.

Do you have the persistence to keep going in the face of impossible odds?

What was the worst thing that has ever happened in your writing life that you've managed to push past?

For me it was the loss of ten years of work when a hard drive crashed. One moment I had nearly a million words of work saved to my hard drive. The next moment it was all gone. Vanishing right before my eyes. All I had left were a few print outs.